Quotes of the day

posted at 10:46 pm on January 20, 2012 by Allahpundit

“I have, for my sins, watched Gingrich make his pitch across what feels like seventeen thousand Republican primary debates, and I am at a loss to identify the ‘big ideas’ and ‘big solutions’ that he is supposedly campaigning on. Yes, he has an implausible supply-side tax plan, but you never hear him talk about it. He has technically signed on to some form of entitlement reform, but you never hear him talk about that, either. Instead, so far as I can tell, his ‘idea-oriented’ campaign consists almost entirely of promising to hold Lincoln-Douglas-style debates with President Obama, grandstanding about media bias and moderator stupidity, defending his history of ideological flexibility much more smoothly than Mitt Romney, and then occasionally throwing out a wonky-sounding notion (like, say, outsourcing E-Verify to American Express) that’s more glib than genuinely significant. His last-minute momentum in South Carolina, which last night’s debate did nothing to derail, has been generated almost exclusively by the politics of ressentiment: If he wins the Palmetto State primary, it will be because conservative voters don’t much like the mainstream press, and Gingrich has mastered the art of taking tough questions and turning them into dudgeon-rich denunciations of the liberal media and all its works…

“[I]f the Iowa results spoke well of that state’s electorate, a victory for Gingrich this weekend will say something less kind about South Carolinians: They’ll be elevating, as Mitt Romney’s final adversary, a man whose ‘idea-based’ campaign has been anything but, and who won last night’s debate (or at least won its biggest ovation) by turning the topic of his own serial adulteries into an exercise in self-righteousness so shameless that Bill Clinton would have blushed to deliver it.”

***

“Being an idea man is fine when you’re writing books, providing commentary and touring the country giving lectures. And it’s apparently enough to make waves in a presidential primary. But Gingrich’s non-traditional campaign failed to qualify for the ballot in his home state of Virginia. And it simply won’t cut it when going after President Obama’s billion dollar plus war chest in a general election. This is something that John McCain proved last time when he won the nomination with a skeleton campaign, only to see his lack of organization (among other things) come back to haunt him in November.

“Beyond that, however excited Gingrich gets by ideas, if he can’t manage a small campaign staff because he’s simply ‘not capable of being a sort of traditional candidate,’ it’s hard to see how he’d competently manage the presidency.

“If Gingrich wins South Carolina and extends the primary, his lack of a traditional campaign will begin to work against him and to the advantage of Mitt Romney as the race goes national. And it will further reinforce Romney’s argument that his managerial competence makes him better equipped to defeat Obama and govern once in office.”

***

“Once forced to combat the president in a clash of 60-second sound bites refereed by Obama’s politically-correct buddies, Newt’s supposedly great debating strengths will backfire badly. In a Republican primary, his haymakers draw cheers from the partisan crowd and the commentators marvel at what a crafty street brawler he is. In a general election debate, the crowd of ‘independents’ will boo and the very same ‘news’ people will suddenly he horrified by the bull who just smashed their china shop to bits…

“Newt would be disarmed in this fight on multiple levels. First, he would lose the expectations game before he even started. Then, knowing his bar would be nearly impossible to hurdle; his massive ego would provoke him into lunging for a knockout on every punch. This would play right into the hands of the super coolheaded Obama who will be confident knowing that the referees will score anything his way as long as he simply stays on his feet.

“In short, the whole affair would be an unmitigated disaster.”

***

“Gingrich was great at rabble rousing. He was awful at actually managing things. That’s why, again, in the single campaign where he was clearly, unambiguously unchallenged as the architect of national GOP campaign strategy, in 1998, he took a lay of the land that virtually every pundit in the land thought would create at least a 15-seat Republican net gain in the House (Gingrich himself predicted as much as a 30-seat gain), and turned it into a five-seat loss that came within a hair’s breadth in about four races of blowing the entire House majority.

“Meanwhile, how can people say he has ‘changed’ or ‘grown’ or ‘matured’? It was less than a year ago that he was trashing Paul Ryan’s budget as ‘right-wing social engineering.’ It was as recently as 2010 that he was still endorsing a version of the individual health-care mandate. It was just last week that he was attacking Bain Capital from an extreme, left-wing position. Sorry, but that ain’t maturation — and it might explain why he took a 20-point lead in Iowa and a tied-for-lead in New Hampshire and, within about three weeks time, turned them into, respectively, fourth- and fifth-place finishes there. Only in his own backyard, in a state (South Carolina) neighboring his longtime Georgia home, could he hope to be competitive. Even if you give him credit for 1994, Gingrich has been involved in just eight heavily contested elections so far (for the House in 1974, 1976, 1978, and 1992, for the national House elections of 1994 and 1998, and for Iowa and New Hampshire this year so far) — and he has won just three of them. He effectively lost in 1974, 1976, 1998, Iowa, and New Hampshire. And this is the standard bearer who supposedly is going to slay Barack Obama via a series of Lincoln-Douglas debates that of course will never happen anyway?!? I think not.”

“Rather than lapsing into the standard ‘Aw-shucks, I’m just an average guy’ political routine, Gingrich went out of his way to embrace his man-on-the-ramparts-of-history persona. Asked about a single regret in the campaign, Newt gave a lesson in Newtonian physics: ‘I would skip the opening three months where I hired regular consultants and tried to figure how to be a normal candidate. And I would just go straight to being a big ideas, big solutions, Internet-based campaign from day one.’ This is Gingrich practicing the politics of authenticity just like he does when he wears suits while campaigning on weekends. Unlike Romney, Gingrich knows who he is and doesn’t try to hide it.

“The fact is, the former House speaker personifies conservatism much as Ronald Reagan did in 1980. With two thirds of the state’s GOP electorate older than 45 (based on 2008 exit polls), voters remember that Newt was the most important Republican of the 1990s. His triumphs in a bleak decade for the GOP earn him a degree of latitude that will never be granted to Romney, no matter what hard-right positions Mitt takes in the quest for the nomination.

“The danger, of course, in this hairpin-turn political season is to over-react to Gingrich’s momentum. Chip Felkel, a Greenville-based GOP political consultant who has not taken sides in the primary, reflected my view of the primary when he said, ‘It’s going to be close. The events of the last 72 hours mean that it could go either way.’ Say what you will about Gingrich — and entire libraries can be written pro-and-con — he remains the most fascinating candidate of this political season. And while he probably will not get the nomination, rest assured that he will not exit the stage quietly. Not after his latest miraculous return from the great beyond.”

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Allah, I’m curious. Do you dislike Newt because you don’t think he can win (given that he’s not actually running a general election campaign yet or anything) or is it because of his presumably philandering ways/seeming willingness to make too many concessions to the other side?

Dismissal of Fox News as a left-biased organization, or assertion that the only poll that matters is the one in November (bonus points for mentions of strippers and race-car drivers), or equating a Republican primary in a deeply conservative state to a general election in the country at large.

“I have, for my sins, watched Gingrich make his pitch across what feels like seventeen thousand Republican primary debates, and I am at a loss to identify the ‘big ideas’ and ‘big solutions’ that he is supposedly campaigning on.

He just says stuff. I can hardly believe he was the author of the Contract w/ America. Who knows what he’ll say next. He likes to bedazzle. He can’t lead, because you can’t follow him. Go Mittens.

Sarah Palin said that this would be an unorthodox campaign. We all thought she was talking only about herself but it looks like she might have been talking about the campaign in general.

Anyway, this election will NOT be decided on the actual details of how-to-do-it but instead on ability to figure it out.

Newt has the spine that the voters want, Newt has the personal repentance that voters want, and Newt has the experience that voters want. He has stated conservative values and managed to convince a substantial portion of tea partiers that he means it. Tea partiers are not a group that is easily fooled and are extremely unlikely to be blinded by BS.

Sorry, Mittens lovers and Santorum soldiers, but that’s the way it is here in the flyover heartland.

Do you understand what’s happening with QOTD? Each of those paragraphs above are not written by AP, they’re linked to the source of who actually did write it. It’s an easy mistake to make.

mike_NC9 on January 20, 2012 at 10:56 PM

If you follow Allah on Twitter, he makes no secret of his antipathy towards Gingrich (or Romney or Paul, for that matter). I’m asking him a sincere question because I consider his opinion to be worth hearing, even though he works very hard at appearing neutral on this site.

and I am at a loss to identify the ‘big ideas’ and ‘big solutions’ that he is supposedly campaigning on.

He should say things like
Yes We can
and
Si Se Puede
and
Hope and Change
and
Hey hey ho ho yomamma is a h0
and stuff like that,
so that the absolute geniuses who matter in the media can understand and simplify for the smelly peasants with broken teeth

Really balanced selection of Newt sucks quotes. All I can say is that SC is red state all the way so deal with it. The end result of the primary is not as important as the fact that the establishment cannot buy it. If Mitt wins he will have to earn it. That is a good thing.

NH is fine, plenty of smart and even handed people in there. Maybe make it a closed ballot is all.

IA and SC should be at the back of the pack, people there only care about who their pastor tells them to vote for.

1punchWill on January 20, 2012 at 11:07 PM

Never said they weren’t. But the number of delegates they bring into the game (and Iowa) doesn’t seem to make since with the prestige they are given as determiners of who gets the nomination and who doesn’t. States with much larger delegate numbers become irrelevant because someone as been declared the candidate well before it gets to them. Bogus.

IA and SC should be at the back of the pack, people there only care about who their pastor tells them to vote for.

1punchWill on January 20, 2012 at 11:07 PM

While I think they have too much early influence I also think this was a cheap shot. You sound like O!bama and his “bitter clinger” comments. I think they have too much early stroke, but I’ll never insult them in such a condescending fashion.

While I think they have too much early influence I also think this was a cheap shot. You sound like O!bama and his “bitter clinger” comments. I think they have too much early stroke, but I’ll never insult them in such a condescending fashion.

predator on January 20, 2012 at 11:16 PM

SC’s not as bad as Iowa, but look who’s won in Iowa for the past 30 years or so and tell me that I’m not telling the truth.

Well thanks AP, that collection should bring the Mittwitts out of the rafters and off the ledges for a couple more days.

Cindy Munford on January 20, 2012 at 10:56 PM

You’re not making us like your guy any more with that kind of derogatory language.

1punchWill on January 20, 2012 at 11:04 PM

As wrong minded as you are, your guy could be Ronald Reagan and Jesus rolled into one and I would have to think about backing him.
I’m guessing your name is one punch for a reason. At least that’s what they say at your local ER anyway.

I did not like Newt coming out and trashing Paul Ryans plan.
I did not like Mitt being quiet during JugEarCare.
Neither, were very noisy while Sarah Palin was fighting the stimulus plan, and JugEarCare.
Heard from Ron Paul’s son about both…not so much from daddy.
Radio Rick tried!
I hope none of them are embarrassed tomorrow and continue on!

Incredulous reporters first thought there was a mistake. Both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney scheduled events at Tommy’s Country Ham House in Greenville, S.C., at 10:45 a.m. ET Saturday. For Romney, the event will be his final public appearance before results are announced Saturday night.

It’s ridiculous that historically the three states of Iowa, NH, and SC have so much sway in determining the eventual nominee. There needs to be a restructuring of this process.

predator on January 20, 2012 at 11:01 PM

Ridiculous, yes. It is how the parties, both of them, have long controlled the selection of their nominees. When they had to give up selecting candidates at conventions, in those horrible smoke-filled rooms, and “turn it over to the people” in primaries and such, well, they selected where those votes would first be cast, in easily controllable venues.

While it is different, it is the same. Nothing in politics or love is ever as it seems. And nothing ever changes, except for the names.

Yes I have. And yes he is. He’s unstable, prone to flying off the handle, degrades quickly into petulant personal attacks to make political points, and thinks rather too highly of himself and his own significance.